Assistant Principal News

Welcome back to Term 2. I hope that all families had a lovely holiday break and spent some quality time together as we entered the season of Easter. My family certainly made the most of the beautiful weather and an abundance of easter eggs!

We have only been back at school for 6 days and our wonderful staff have already been actively engaged in professional learning opportunities that will greatly benefit the learning of our students. 

For our Term 2 Staff Development Day, all staff attended the ‘7 Steps of Writing’ course. The program is already embedded in our school and provides students with the building blocks for great writing. During the term, teachers will work together with myself and their peers to take small, manageable steps to build student confidence and skills to make writing fun and achievable for all ability levels. Watch this space!!

On Thursday, teachers from Year 3 to 6 attended a ‘Spell-It’ course. Designed by MultiLit, ‘Spell-It’ delivers an explicit approach to teaching spelling by identifying gaps in student knowledge and providing strategies which focus on developing an understanding of the spelling system that underpins written English. Combined with ‘InitiaLit’, which is thoroughly embedded in our infant classes, ‘Spell-It’ will provide teachers with valuable data to assist us understand the ways in which students learn to spell and best practice in how to effectively support student understanding at all levels. The Spell-It program is already being used in our 4-6 classes but will now be introduced into Year 3 classes beginning this term. 

We are very blessed with our hard working and committed staff at St Francis Xavier.

Looking forward to a wonderful term.

Kind regards

Fiona Scullion

Assistant Principal (acting)